Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Dickens - The First Three Days

This weekend, I was playing Ariyana. Not only did I play her part, I fed her kitties, washed in her shower and slept in her bed. Sleeping that close to fair site is too nice. Bob has occasionally mentioned renting a room near site on some Saturday nights. Methinks the man may have a wise notion. I may consider seeing what HotWire or Priceline can offer me on Gaskells weekend. (Oooh... a quick check of HotWire shows a room available for $34, 3 miles from the airport. That's so worth it, considering gas to and fro would be about $7.)

Friday went oddly well. Everyone seemed ready. Things fell into place. I was everywhere I needed to be at the right time. I gave the first of 3 final performances as Belle. I'm really looking forward to being someone else next weekend. It is a bit of an emotional workup. And you walk away, and must instantly be smiles and sociability. The boys at the Green Man took good care of me, feeding me lemonade, and Quinn was the sweetest - he brought me a folio of Scharfenberger chocolates and warned me I was not to share (but I did just a little). He really is a dear and thoughtful boy. Turns out, I made Bates cry. He wasn't ready for the full force of the experience, and for whatever reason, I think Friday was one of my best ever. The timing was spot on and everything felt natural. But, net result is tears from our new Ebenezer. Luckily, the lovely ladies of Fezziwigs put him back together with plenty of hugs, kisses, and snuggles. I went off to Dark Garden with Josh and we did our muse and poet scene, with big laughs when I wound up the croquet mallet.

After fair, since I didn't have to make it all the way home, I went to dinner with Bob, Laura, Sherman, Alex, Emily & David at Nona's Kitchen. Yummiest French Onion soup ever, in a vegetarian base. You all must go eat it. Yummy. Yummy. Yummy. Even if Joreth is evil and tried to crack me up during my window, he is totally forgiven for his leet cooking skills and his supply of champagne over the weekend.

Saturday morning I woke up before the alarm went off after 8 1/2 hours of sleep. Have I mentioned how cool it is not to have to lose 2 hours a day to driving? Oh yeah. Kitty snuggles were had and off I went back to site. Day two was not as smooth on several fronts, starting first with the ants having found our food shelves overnight, and while there was no food left on them per se, there were a lot of very tasty crumbs, so they were having a fine time. I started my morning by sculling the kitchen, wiping down every shelf and circling each shelf leg with alcohol gel to provide a barrier. This worked well enough until Babs brother could arrive with ant stakes which they apparently enjoyed more than the food and we had no ants at all on Sunday. We also started really noticing an issue with the Fezzi daughters. By Saturday, there had already been more than one occasion where we couldn't muster three for opening tableau or the queen's visit. But, in each case, Miss Thatcher was there and was happy to stand in. After being pressed into service twice and nearly a third time, I decided she should officially be a daughter and turned to Mrs. Bloomingstock and said, "What's a name meaning dependable?" She replied "Constance." And so it was done: Miss Constance Fezziwig. Sadly, our new daughter could not be there on Sunday, so Sarah was pressed into service for the Sunday morning tableau. This led to me starting to rail about back in my day when I was a daughter we were here at 9:30 dressed every bleeping day without fail after walking uphill both directions in the rain from the muddy parking lot and we liked it dammit! Ahem. But many thanks to the lovely young ladies who filled in. As soon as we can think of another name for dependable or trustworthy or somesuch, I suspect Sarah may become a daughter officially as well. Saturday afternoon was my second Dark Garden window, this time with Quinn. Needing something that required no props and low preparation, we opted for something we both know very well: dancing! I haven't seen any phots from either day yet, so I don't know how it looked, but reviews were positive. Saturday night, I opted to head home on the premise of spending a bit of time with Flonk before he had to return to West Hell, but after stopping to feed kitties and scoop litter, I made it home just in time for them to be headed to bed. So, I soaked my feet in the Johnson's Foot Soap and hit the hay.

Up again too soon, I headed back for day three. There should never be a day three in a row for Dickens Fair. It's just not right. And it's definitely not right on the first weekend. But day three started with Elizabeth giving me a present just because she thought I might need a pick me up for day three. She was totally right, and my prezzie totally rocked: black cherry print galoshes. OMG SQUEE! I can't wait til it rains!!! Thankfully, Anthony (our backstage czar) was back so I gave leave to my duties keeping things tidied and gave him a big hug. Oh how I missed him! I gave Mr. Scrooge the old sendoff one last time and made it out to have one more post-breakup cup of lemonade. Martin missed his cue at the end of the day and so we didn't have the Ebenezer and Ebenezer scene, which was fine by me. It was just like the last day of fair. We sang our new short carol-out and settled briefly on the bleachers for a quick pat on the back and off to home. I made it home before 9, showered up and was in bed by 9:30. About 9 hours I woke up to go pee. About 3 more hours later I woke up again to snuggle the cat. About 11am I rolled out of bed. With the work conflagration time shifted by a month, I spent my day having lunch with Fred, doing the laundry, putting away some things in the attic, doing a little work, and finally heading up to Alameda for more dancing.

Ceili was sparsely attended last night, but we had some special guests - Alisa (visiting from San Antonio), Janelle (newly transplanted back from West Hell), and Michael Murphy (who teaches set dancing). It was a lovely night of sweaty dancing and a few hands of Zombie Fluxx.

I survived the first weekend with nothing a good solid twelve hours of sleep couldn't fix. Next weekend should be better.